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Mt Scoria Conservation Park

Mount Scoria – musical rock

Mount Scoria rises up from the surrounding plain, a single and spectacular highlight against an otherwise flat landscape. Across its peak, multi-sided rocks are regimented into large vertical and semi-vertical pillars or columns, blunt at the top as if they’d been cropped. Not only odd in shape, the columns are also unique for the sound they make when struck.

Still standing tall after 25 million years, Scoria’s exceptional staying power is due to the hard volcanic rock that lay at the core, exposed only after the softer surface had weathered away.

The work of a small volcano, the mountain is actually a basalt plug and the dramatic, angular-shaped rocks the result of the cooling process. The six-sided columns cooled slowly and evenly, while the five, seven, or eight-sided columns cooled much faster and erratically.

How to get to Mt Scoria?

Close to Thangool, a 10-minute drive down the Burnett Highway takes you directly to the park entrance, where it’s only a short distance to the site.

Though a tempting climb, the mountain is culturally significant to the Gangulu People, and also considered dangerous under foot. For these reasons, visitors are asked to stick to the designated walking tracks. An easy-to-do activity before a picnic lunch, the short cultural interpretive walk (Class 3) around the base of the mountain reveals Scoria’s epic history, hidden stories and importance of place.

The surrounding vegetation includes 72 plant species, among them silver-leaved ironbark, Moreton Bay ash, Queensland blue gum, brigalow and in particular, semi-deciduous vine thickets that are significant in their own right. Mount Scoria also attracts birds and with thirty-three species common to the area, the park is well-known as a bird watcher’s delight.

Park features

Mount Scoria’s magnificent basalt columns.

The vines thickets are particularly significant and for this reason the park is listed on the National Estate Register.

The cultural interpretive Class 3 walk at the mountain base is a short and easy stroll along a well-defined track that may slope slightly in places or have steps.